


raining cats and dogs

by apothothesis (valoirs)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Sheithlentines 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-31 13:29:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13976124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valoirs/pseuds/apothothesis
Summary: So, this guy—he looks like he could single-handedly bench press Keith without breaking a sweat.





	raining cats and dogs

**Author's Note:**

> My Sheithlentines 2018 gift for [Zan](http://phaltu.tumblr.com). Happy belated Valentine's Day and thank you for being so patient! I tried to combine both of your AU prompts; here's hoping it turned out to your liking!

 

 

The issue with getting soaked in the rain on the way home isn't just that he's that much closer to getting brutally sick. It's about the whole host of other problems the scenario invites.

The sun is setting by the time Keith finally gets home to his apartment, and he forgoes his usual routine of locking up properly so he can kick his shoes off and turn the space heater to full blast to defrost himself. He peels off his soaked jacket, then his equally soaked shirt, tossing them unceremoniously over the back of a chair. He  _could_  go for a shower now, but the temptation wars with the desire to dig some leftovers out of the fridge for food. Starving and cold—the best combination on an evening when he's had to deal with one of his most difficult clients at the grooming shop.

And, evidently, the best way to be found when a stranger, looking hunted—and fatally,  _fatally_ attractive—lets himself inside the apartment two minutes later.

He looks like he could single-handedly bench press Keith without breaking a sweat.

"Sorry, I just need a place to hide," he says, the words tripping over each other in a hurried rush, barely even looking at Keith, his head turned as if he's checking for pursuers.

Keith stares at him, fingers caught halfway in the motion of unzipping his rain-soaked jeans, feeling distinctly like a deer in the headlights. His first thought:  _why did I forget to lock the door_. His second: nothing, because instead, his brain short-circuits.

The man, ignorant of Keith's dilemma, continues, grocery bag rustling in his hand.

"I swear I'll explain, I'll make it up to you, it's just—"

He freezes, meeting Keith's blank stare.

It would be hilarious if Keith weren't freezing, shirtless, and painfully aware of their accidental staring contest, because the stranger looks just as taken aback and flustered as Keith feels. The awkward silence draws out for a pointed few seconds, and then he hears a series of footfalls in the hallway, followed by someone grousing, "I  _swear_  he went this way."

The spell breaks. Keith pointedly zips up his jeans. This is all this stupidly attractive stranger's fault, and Keith wants him out as soon as humanly possible so he can sit back and stew over all of his life choices, and also berate himself into never forgetting to lock the door ever again.

As if sensing Keith's murderous intent, the stranger coughs, then turns his head, mumbling, "Sorry about this."

"Look, I just wanna know," Keith says slowly, reaching for his wet t-shirt just so he doesn't have to stand half-naked in front of this guy and question his entire existence for the sixth time in the past minute. The guy doesn't seem to be carrying any kind of weapon on him, so Keith feels secure enough to finish his line of thought. "Are you a criminal on the run? Because I'm going to hand you right over to the cops if you think I'm gonna help you get out of whatever you pulled."

"It's not like that!" The stranger holds his hands in front of him placatingly, and it would be more effective if he weren't carrying what looks like a bag of produce and a box of cat treats, as well as what Keith belatedly recognizes as an umbrella with a ridiculous robot pattern. "It's just—paparazzi." The words emerge haltingly, and the stranger watches Keith warily for a reaction. "They started tailing me in the grocery store, and I ducked in here to try shaking them off my tail." Guilt rises in his expression. "I just tried a random door, thinking I could hide for a bit—honestly, I'm really sorry for the inconvenience. I'll pay you if you want. I owe you."

Keith's had a long day and he's  _still_ soaked and cold, even with the space heater on blast. Is this guy supposed to be some kind of celebrity if he's on the paparazzi's radar? Honestly, this is the kind of thing that's supposed to happen in movies, not his own life. He glances longingly in the direction of the bathroom, imagining how much less like a drowned rat he would feel if he had a proper shower.

"Just take off your shoes and sit somewhere," he mutters instead, eyeing the man warily. "If you steal or mess with anything though, I'm going to get you thrown out by management." An empty threat; management in this aged complex doesn't really give a shit about its tenants, but this guy doesn't have to know that. Still, the man looks so grateful that Keith almost feels bad for how snappy he's been.

Can he really afford to shower if it means he can't keep an eye on this guy and make sure he's not up to something suspicious?

Instead, Keith wanders to his fridge to fish out his leftovers; at least if he's only cold and not hungry, it'll be some consolation. Except when he opens up the fridge, it's then that he remembers he'd eaten all his leftovers earlier, when he brought them to work so he wouldn't have to step out during break to buy something overpriced in the adjacent restaurant. The shelves are a sad, empty sight. He curses softly under his breath. It would  _suck_  to go back out again in this rain, especially since he hasn't replaced his old broken umbrella yet.

"Hey, uh..."

Keith jerks at the sound of the man's voice, turning to look at him.

Like a peace offering, the man holds up his lone grocery bag. "I owe you, so I could try making something? And you could go get dry."

Sizing him up warily, Keith responds automatically, "It's fine, I don't need—"

His stomach rumbles. Feeling vaguely betrayed, Keith closes his eyes and counts to ten, the way he does whenever a client gets especially finicky.

But the stranger's ensuing chuckle is sympathetic, soft, and warm in a way that makes Keith want to curl his toes. It's just enough that some part of him goes  _well, fuck_. What's the worst that could happen?

"...Are you sure about that?" the man asks gently, visibly holding back a laugh.

Keith is most definitely not, but he can't really say that in a dignified way right now, so instead, he huffs out a sigh, resolve crumbling. "Clean pan's on the dish rack, condiments and spices on the shelf," he mutters. "If you poison me, just know that I don't have anything valuable for you to steal." That he'll probably try to take him out during his dying moments too goes unsaid, but then again, it's not a particularly compelling threat when the guy is probably at least double Keith's total muscle mass.

He tells himself this is just a weird one-off that won't happen again in the future, and he can return to his normal routine in a few hours. That's all it is. It's less than ideal that he has a stranger in his apartment when the most interaction he usually has in a week outside of work is when his traitorous coworkers crash his place just to leech off of his Netflix account because he won't share the password.

By the time he emerges from the shower, clad in dry clothes and toweling off his hair, there's soup simmering on the stove, and the tantalizing scent of stir-fry hovering in the air. His uninvited guest turned chef glances over once Keith is just a few feet away.

"It's basically done," he says, gaze flitting to the door of Keith's apartment. "I think it's been long enough that they've probably given up, so I'll get out of your hair."

_Good riddance_ , Keith wants to say.  _Maybe you should eat this with me_ , his mind puts forward helpfully instead. Thankfully, not aloud.

"Thanks," he says tentatively, watching as the stranger heads to the door, slipping his boots on. "Hopefully you don't run into those guys again."

"Hopefully not. Thanks for letting me stay here for a bit. You really saved my hide. They've been harassing me all week," the man says with tangible relief. "What's your name?"

"Keith. You?" He leans against the counter, wincing as his stomach rumbles again.

"You can call me Shiro." Tactfully, he doesn't comment on Keith's growling stomach; instead, he opens the door just a crack, taking a quick peek outside. "I don't hear anything, so it really looks like the coast is clear. Thanks again for everything." Shiro turns to face Keith one last time, offering a show-stopping smile. "Take care, all right?"

"Yeah, you too." He drapes the towel around his shoulders as Shiro heads out, then goes to halfheartedly hunt down a brush, wrangle his hair into some semblance of order, and eat. In the end, in spite of how initial put-upon he was, it hasn't turned out badly. He probably would have just subsisted on snacks instead of eating something properly if not for Shiro.

In any case, the food is delicious.

He wolfs down essentially everything Shiro's cooked—no poison, not that Keith  _really_  expected it, even though he's heard countless stories about people masquerading as all kinds of utilities workers to get into people's houses and rob them blind. They say the most charming, convincing ones are the real psychopaths, but Shiro had seemed so utterly genuine it was impossible to really hate him.

It's after he's cleaned off his plate that he finds the cat treats and umbrella Shiro accidentally left behind, and the robot-pattern umbrella is just as ridiculous close-up as it was when Keith initially glimpsed it. He would have thought someone like him would carry something more dignified. A patternless black umbrella, maybe. It would be nice to return it to him somehow, but it's unlikely they'll cross paths again, so maybe it would be best to keep it in the closet and then bring the treats to work. Some of the clients approve of a few treats for their pets over the course of a grooming.

Since this incident is just a one-off, it only makes sense to at least put the treats to use instead of leaving the box to collect dust.

 

 

 

It isn't, in fact, a one-off.

Keith rarely handles the counter—that's more of Allura's job. With her convincing smiles and flawless customer-service voice, she has machine-level precision when it comes to homing in on exactly how to handle a client. Keith's accustomed to just being in the other room, working directly with the pets instead of their owners, gently trimming and working knots out of fur. Which is why he doesn't know at first about their newest client, only that he has a gorgeous Maine coon with black-brown fur.

She's perfectly docile when he sits her up on the counter, far from the other cats they get, who are often nervous coming in their first time. Her rumbling purrs sound almost like a lion's as he gently lifts her tufted paws, checking the lengths of her nails. The only thing has to go off of from Allura is a short description:  _Black's fur is getting really unruly, so just clean her up a bit, even out her fur, shave a bit from her rear and belly, clip her nails just a little._

It's all reasonable enough from a hygiene perspective. Keith works efficiently but carefully, clipping her nails with a practiced ease, moving quickly without compromising on his diligence. Black watches him patiently, her irises gold-green in the light. It's the first time a cat has taken so quickly to him, especially with her nonstop purring. He briskly but gently works the brush through her fur, testing for knots, and works an electronic razor with a comb guard along the edges of her fur, skimming off just a little at a time to even it out.

Her purring only stops when he brings her to the sink for the wash, but even then, she waits patiently while he wets her fur under the spray, then works some organic degreaser through her fur. It's right in the middle of when he's finished rinsing her off and started on shampooing her that the door opens audibly and he sees Pidge elbow someone inside with a shout of "Keith, this guy's gotta wait in here for a bit—Allura's orders!" and then quickly shut the door.

Black lets out a chirping meow. Keith glances away from her only because she seems so taken with the newcomer, then freezes, sleeves rolled up and hands covered in shampoo, when he realizes it's Shiro.

It takes a moment before Keith manages to say something, voice dry. "Is this the part where I ask if you've been following me?" Surprisingly, he doesn't feel too discomfited; it might have something to do with having a content cat purring quietly under his hands.

"I didn't know you worked here," Shiro starts, eyes averting briefly. "Allura's a friend of mine, and Black really hated the other place I tried taking to her for grooming, so I thought I'd bring her here. But long story short, when I was heading out, someone recognized me and started tailing me  _again_ , so I figured I'd ask Allura for a favor and hide in here while she scared them off." He makes a helpless gesture. "The other person here—Pidge?—said that this room doesn't have windows facing the street at least, so..."

"I can see Allura getting pissed enough to scare the shit out of the paparazzi if they're harassing a client or friend," Keith says, hands massaging gently against Black's fur while he washes out the shampoo. He's heard enough gushing from Lance about Allura's previous occupation as a voice actress and her highly acclaimed vocal work, so finding out now that she knows Shiro really does lend some credibility to Shiro's claims about being chased by paparazzi. Small world.

Honestly, three-quarters of their clientele are probably around just for Allura, rather than anything in particular the other groomers do.

"Yeah. I'm glad she seems to be doing well here though." Shiro's voice is a little wistful. "She got a lot of flack when she suddenly quit out of the blue, but I think she's happier working with animals than dealing with directors. She'd always told me about wanting to start a grooming salon."

"How do you know her exactly?" Keith looks up just long enough to catch Shiro's gaze, and he has to look away when he forgets for a split second how to breathe.

"I'm just an actor, but we got cast for voicing roles in a few animated series together," Shiro says easily, as if being some big-shot actor is perfectly ordinary.

They subside into easy small talk at that point while Keith works, hyperaware he's being watched but trying not to have a major reaction to it. Every so often, Black meows specifically in Shiro's direction, and it's impossibly endearing to watch a fully-grown man talk sweetly back at her, endlessly doting. In the lulls, Keith catches himself humming a bit, voice drowned out a bit by the razor when he skims off a few more uneven spots in Black's fur after she's been dried. She puts up minimal fuss when he tentatively nudges to see if she's willing to lay down belly-up so he can clean up the fur there, so docile that it's almost surreal.

"You know, she really likes you," Shiro comments softly during another lull, his eyes soft. Keith tries not to think too hard about what it means, or how Shiro is standing closer now, rather than near the door. "She scratched up the other groomer she got, but it looks like she's completely taken to you."

"She's a beautiful cat," Keith murmurs, finger tipping up Black's chin just a bit so he can brush along the fur underneath. He'd been careful to avoid accidentally skimming off her whiskers, and he'd left most of her mane intact. She holds herself regally as they speak, every bit as handsome as her owner.

Okay, so Shiro can't be a bad person if his cat adores him that much. It's hard not to have as many qualms about Shiro after this.

When Keith finally lets Black off the counter, she leaps off and lands gracefully on the floor, shaking herself off a bit. She rubs up against his leg, tail twining briefly around his knee, then gives a vaguely discontent meow at the point she still smells like clean shampoo, rather than herself.

"Sorry, girl," he murmurs soothingly. "You'll be fine after a while." He looks up at Shiro. "You don't have other cats, right?"

"Just Black," Shiro says, looking questioningly at him.

"That's good. She won't have issues with other cats in the household not recognizing her for a bit then. She's good to go."

Shiro's hand is warm when he places it on Keith's shoulder. "Thanks, Keith. I'll see you next time."

"Yeah," Keith says, trying not to feel dumb.

Black follows Shiro out of the room when Shiro tentatively pokes his head out and starts walking back to the front. It takes Keith a few minutes to process what just happened, and the lingering warmth on his shoulder.

He's so screwed.

 

 

 

The thing is, Black drops by again next week, right on the dot. And then the next. Keith doesn't know what Shiro says to Allura each time, but somehow, he's in the room again and again while Keith works. There isn't much to do after that initial grooming, either. Cats aren't  _supposed_ to get bathed so often. And Keith can't actually bring himself to skim off anymore of Black's fur, not when it looks so nice and doesn't need any further trimming.

He says as much, but Shiro only coughs, smiles, and makes up some kind of excuse.

Right. Keith's not stupid—he knows something's up, has inklings, even, but it feels too egotistical to really throw guesses in that direction.

The sessions turn into regular chats. Somehow, he becomes privy to all of Shiro's stories about what he's doing on set, and the dumb jokes he makes to his coworkers, and the latest drama that's flared up with the costuming department, and how the makeup department regularly wants to murder him for messing something up between takes. Keith doesn't know exactly when things shift, when he starts to look forward more and more to their chats, when Shiro just becomes some regular fixture in his life.

It escalates to Shiro dropping by at his apartment, even, citing another photographer he needs to hide from, but in spite of Shiro's acting skills on set, he's perfectly transparent outside of it.

It all comes to a head one week when Lance finally butts in. "Okay, you know what," he interjects loudly during a break. "You've got my hero,  _Takashi Shirogane_ , dropping by on the regular to see  _you_ , and you  _still_  haven't watched any of his movies. We've been helping him hide out in here for weeks! You should have seen something by now."

Keith frowns and makes a mental note to foist that one annoying terrier they sometimes get onto Lance the next time it comes in. He can practically hear all the italics in Lance's words. "Is his stuff really that famous?" he finally asks, but it's honestly a rhetorical question; Shiro wouldn't have the paparazzi hunting him constantly if he  _weren't_ a huge deal _._

"You, me, Hunk, Pidge," Lance says immediately. "Tonight. We're going to marathon a bunch of Shiro's movies on your Netflix, and you're going to like it."

"No Allura?" Keith can't help the dry sarcasm. "You said earlier this week that this week would finally be the one where she falls for you."

"It's not romantic if we're  _all_  there!" Lance throws his hands up, then jabs a finger into Keith's chest. "It's happening. Pidge hasn't stopped complaining about you guys being  _obnoxious_. So maybe this'll get you to finally do something."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Keith says indignantly, but he already knows, even though he also knows, in equal measure, that he doesn't have the guts. Not right now, anyway.

That changes, of course, when they all gather late at night with some beers, crowding together on Keith's lone couch in front of the discounted television he'd bought earlier that year, his laptop hooked up with an HDMI cable. Lance isn't kidding about the marathon either, because they somehow make it through five different movies before Hunk starts snoring, and Lance bites the dust shortly after, and Pidge makes a tactical retreat and absconds into the night so she doesn't have to deal with their hangovers in the morning.

Thank god it's a weekend.

Keith stews the entire weekend over the image of Shiro shirtless from some of those movies, and his lethal grace during the action shots of some of them, and his perfectly emotive lines. His versatility is frightening. Keith decides his sanity has escaped him now because Shiro's image is probably seared into his retinas now.

Maybe it's just impulse, or maybe—more likely—it's all of Lance's egging on. But Keith gets the idea the next time Shiro drops off Black for yet another grooming. He stays to chat, as usual, but Keith has everything set up in advance so he doesn't suspect a thing, and so Shiro can pretend nothing's happened if Keith really has acted on faulty intuition.

They do it less with cats, with how finicky some can be, but with a number of the dogs he's groomed, Keith gives them a cute bandana at the end of a grooming, mostly for the owner's satisfaction and impromptu photo ops. This time, at the end of Black's grooming, if it can even be called that anymore, Keith gently secures a red bandana around Black's neck. She paws at it for a moment, then sits up properly, looking terribly dignified and cute with her solemn expression.

"Something different this time?" Shiro asks, but he sounds perfectly delighted with this.

"Hey, she looks cute with it, doesn't she?" Keith manages a smile, but inside, his pulse is probably so irregular he'd need to get it checked up on if it doesn't let up. He gives Shiro a small shove. "Go pay up front at the counter before you forget like the other time."

"Gotta give you your tip first," Shiro murmurs, and Keith means to bat Shiro's hand away before he implodes violently from the proximity, but somehow, he lets the man press the bills into his hand.

"Until next time," Keith says, and Shiro echoes the words, and it's only after Shiro's out the door that Keith lets himself lean up against the wall with a quiet breath.

They'd never exchanged numbers, but on the underside of that bandana, Keith's appended a sticky note with his own, accompanied by a small " _call me"_. It's stupid—a minor gesture, but it gives Shiro a chance to ignore it if he really isn't interested.

So Keith thinks, except that's the exact moment when his phone starts ringing, and he almost drops it as he answers it, noting the unfamiliar number.

"Hello?" he says, and to his credit, his voice is perfectly steady.

_"Hi,"_  says Shiro's voice breathlessly, the same way he'd greeted the female lead of one of the romance thrillers he'd starred in when she'd practically wilted into his arms during an especially melodramatic scene.

"Shiro," Keith says, and all the possible intelligent things he could be saying disappear from his brain space right when he needs them the most.

_"So. If I'm being honest, I saw the numbers while you were putting it on Black, and I couldn't resist,"_ Shiro says, laughing, his voice a husky ribbon of mirth.

"Yeah, see if I ever try making the first move again," Keith mumbles, but his voice is fond.

_"Let me take you out sometime?"_

"Yeah, su—"

Somewhere from both the other room, and through the phone, Keith hears the feedback of Allura's voice.  _"You two, do your flirting outside of my salon! I've overlooked this because you're a paying customer, Shiro, but Keith's still on shift."_

"You know," Keith says conversationally after a brief lull, because there's no way Allura would fire him, "I still have your dumb robot umbrella from that first night you barged into my apartment. You want that back, or what?"

Shiro's laugh is warm.  _"Wow, I thought I'd lost that thing. So you had it all this time."_

"Yeah. And your cat treats, but I might've given them all to Black anyway."

_"Hold onto the umbrella,"_   Shiro says, voice lilting,  _"so that next time some handsome stranger barges into your apartment, you won't get caught soaked and shirtless."_

"Hey, it turned out fine, didn't it?" Keith shoots back challengingly.

_"Yeah, well,"_ Shiro says,  _"let's hope it rains next time, too."_


End file.
